Inside the Star

Rae steers coalition against Ignatieff

There is no doubt that Jack Layton is the brain behind the anti-Harper coalition and Stéphane Dion is the funny salesman who tried to sell it to Canadians. But the person who sold it to the Liberals was Bob Rae.

There is no doubt that Jack Layton is the brain behind the anti-Harper coalition and Stéphane Dion is the funny salesman who tried to sell it to Canadians. But the person who sold it to the Liberals was Bob Rae.

When the first rumours about the coalition surfaced last week on Parliament Hill, few people gave them much credence. Many Liberal MPs wouldn't feel comfortable with Dion leading the Christmas Parade in Vaughan, and Michael Ignatieff and his supporters were against it.

Then former prime minister Jean Chrétien got involved and one MP told me that "now it's clear that Bob Rae is behind this." He also said that Rae's move "trapped" Ignatieff, who had to support the deal because otherwise "he is going to be seen as the person who kept Harper in government."

Why risk an election with the prospect of having Dion lead the Liberal party into another campaign nightmare? Seizing the moment to dump Harper might be understandable, but why go ahead with an alliance with Gilles Duceppe that sent shivers down the spines of many Canadians? Why take the Liberal party down that road even after Dion's embarrassing performance this week, when his team proved unable even to shoot a decent video? Isn't it better to let Harper deal with the heavy load of the economic crisis, put the Liberal house in order, elect the new leader in May, and then challenge Harper in September?

Well, the first answer is obvious. Rae knows that, as things look now, he is not going to win the Liberal leadership race unless something dramatic happens; and a federal election this spring would push the next Liberal convention back for at least a year.

However, things might be much more complex and far-reaching. Ontario NDP Leader Howard Hampton this week had a warning for his federal leader, Jack Layton: "Bob Rae has always wanted to fold the NDP into the Liberal party, and I think Jack Layton has to be aware of that."

I believe Hampton is right. By creating a "cause" using the anti-Harper sentiment in certain parts of the country, Rae wants to take "strategic voting" to a higher level and set the stage for another project – uniting the Canadian left. A new Canadian government, led by Dion but supported by the NDP, would plant the seed of the new Canadian left, leading to a future two-party national political landscape. I believe that the coalition Rae will promote throughout the country in the weeks to come is not much of a threat to Harper, but is to Ignatieff and Layton, who would be rendered obsolete in this new political environment.

It might be exactly what the country needs, at a time when our electoral system has been proven unable to elect a government that can govern. However, Liberals should be aware that if the operation succeeds, their party will no longer be the same.

The Liberal party is a big tent, with people who could easily switch to the Conservatives on the right or join the NDP on the left. If the tent is stretched further toward the left, the party will lose a consistent base of support on the right that will join the Conservatives – if Harper drops his confrontational attitude toward the Liberals and starts flirting with some of them. If Rae's coalition succeeds, it might even give Harper a majority in January by forcing a dozen Liberal MPs to switch to the Conservatives.

I don't know if this is the Chrétien-Rae strategy. But Rae's staunch support for this coalition definitely cannot be justified only by his political hatred for Stephen Harper. He knows that in a few months Liberals will have the chance to replace this government with a new and real leader at the helm. Rolling the dice in January means that the target is not Harper, but Ignatieff and Layton.

Angelo Persichilli is the political editor of Corriere Canadese. His column appears Sunday.

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